Restaurant Neighbor Award: 2009 Winners

Alex Ray doesn’t consider himself a philanthropist. His “doing good” philosophy is a matter of good business, he says. In the past 38 years, Ray’s Common Man Family of Restaurants and its 800 employees have been involved in hundreds of fundraisers and company-wide community-service events. Ray began small, with personal causes. Spaghetti dinners helped pay for accident victims’ medical expenses, such as a friend who broke his back by falling off a roof. Then there were pancake breakfasts, catered meals for non-profit associations and fundraisers for the library, fire department, the New Hampshire Science Center and a school for the blind.

“We give of ourselves,” Ray says. “It’s more valuable, more genuine, and it makes the staff feel good.” Today, Ray reimburses employees at his 17 restaurants for community service and allows them to choose their projects. He also sets an example through his community involvement. He helped save the homestead of 19th-century statesman and orator Daniel Webster and turn the 140-acre property into theWebster Place Recovery Center for people with drug and alcohol addictions. He’s also building a cooking school in a poor town in Honduras. “When we reinvest our resources in the community, it helps sustain our company,” Ray says.